Relatives torch offices of Red Sea ferry firm

Angry relatives of passengers lost in the Red Sea ferry disaster ransacked the offices of the ship's owners yesterday, throwing furniture and other equipment into the street before setting fire to it.

The protesters, in the Egyptian port of Safaga, burned a large photo of one of the company's ferries and tore down the signboard from the front of the building. Riot police later dispersed the crowd.

The ship, al-Salam 98, carrying more than 1,400 passengers from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, sank on Thursday night after a fire broke out on board.

Less than two hours into the voyage, which would have put the ship about 40 miles off the Saudi coast, fire broke out in the vehicle parking bay. The crew apparently thought they had the blaze extinguished and the captain pressed on for Egypt. Then the fire rekindled.

"The captain had four hours to ask for help or to return to Saudi Arabia, but he did not. His pride made him believe that he could control the situation," said one survivor, Abdul Hakim, who works as a painter in Kuwait. "He was acting as if we were not human beings."

Yesterday the governor of Red Sea province, Bakr al-Rashidi, put the number of survivors at 388 - lower than the figure given by police on Sunday. The number of bodies retrieved from the sea had risen to 244, Mr Rashidi told Associated Press. This leaves at least 770 passengers on the ferry still unaccounted for but feared dead.

In the port of Hurghada, about 40 miles north of Safaga, a crowd outside the local hospital became angry and broke through security barriers when police put photographs of dead passengers on display - apparently for identification purposes. Police and hospital officials met the families and agreed to let small groups of people enter the hospital to see the pictures and identify their relatives.